There was silence for a moment. Then Eliam Dragonblade spoke. “We’ll wait till he returns then. If we go after him outside, unless fortune hands him over, he’ll just outfly us. He’s that fast.”
AuRon ignored it, and puffed himself up as best he could, filling his long lungs with air to make himself appear larger, and slunk down Shadowcatch’s tunnel.
The dragon slumbered in his alcove. He was younger than AuRon, but had grown a little larger on the rich meals of the Wyrmmaster. AuRon padded by at his most silent, not even breathing. The smell of another male so close put fire in his veins and chest, just what he needed for the day’s work. He made his way to the gate at the dragonelle’s cavern. Shadowcatch’s nostrils twitched, and his lips peeled back in his sleep to expose sharp yellowed teeth.
A sleepy Dragonguard stood up when AuRon came to the gate. AuRon stumbled and knocked the tallow-light from the wall with a folded wing. Only a single light from farther up the cave illuminated the open gate. AuRon snarled.
“No matter, sir, I’ll relight it.”
AuRon hurried past in the dark. He wondered how long he had before the ruse was unmasked.
He entered the dragonelle’s cave. A new dragonelle, with freshly uncased wings, lay on Nereeza’s perch, but otherwise all was the same. Two of the dragonelles lay encircled around fresh clutches of eggs and a third, Alhala, lay swollen and panting, ready to clutch.
“This ends today,” he said with his mind.
“Hurry, AuRon!” Natasatch thought. “They’ll be here to gather the eggs soon.”
The dragonelles stirred. He felt their confusion.
“I won’t end up like Nereeza!” Ouistrela growled, using her voice rather than her mind.
“What do you mean by AuRon? It’s NooShoahk, isn’t it?” thought the one who had teased him before. “That is Shadowcatch’s tunnel. What—?”
“No time to explain,” AuRon said, moving to Ouistrela’s ledge. “But your eggs are never going to be taken from you again.”
There was only one dwarsaw, and AuRon had to go about the job carefully. He’d only done six dragonelles when he heard voices from the gate. He scrambled up to the ceiling and clung upside down in the shadows, just as Father used to hide when he was on guard. His skin turned a mottled gray and black to match the vaulted cavern roof.
“Yes, two laid during the night. There may be three clutches by now,” the guard said. “Shadowcatch is in there.”
“You’ve been napping on duty again, Rov,” someone laughed. “Shadowcatch still sleeps off his wine in his chamber.”
“It can’t be, he only—”
“Then again . . . ,” Eliam’s voice echoed. “Ijon, go and get the ready-guard. There may be trouble in the egg cavern. The rest of you, after me.” AuRon heard a sword being unsheathed.
The keepers and the dragonguards came into the cavern cautiously, wyrmcatchers at the ready. They relaxed when they saw the dragonelles upon their perches. Eliam looked all around the cavern, flashing a beam from a focused lantern into the corners. He searched the ceiling—the light played across AuRon’s haunch before moving on—and looked at each dragonelle carefully. All were chained to the wall; all had their muzzles on.
“Rov’ll lose his cloak for this, the lazy wretch deserves it. Two clutches,” the Dragonblade said. “We’ll have another before sun-down, I think. A good month.”
“The ready-guard?” a Dragonguard said.
“No harm in having extra men. Ouistrela’s got a glint in her eye. I think she means trouble,” Eliam said. He raised his voice, so he could be heard farther down the cavern. “Ouistrela, be sensible. You give us few enough eggs as is, you don’t want to anger me; I’ll have you dragged out of this cavern. In sections. Don’t forget what happened to Nereeza.”
AuRon held his breath, praying that Ouistrela would hold her tongue. And her place.
“I remember Nereeza, sir. She was foolish.”
“And you aren’t going to be foolish, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Good.”
The sound of armor at the run interrupted the conversation. A file of men in dragon scale came into the cavern, killing spears at the ready. AuRon counted twenty, all well armed, and began to despair. What if he had to deal with them all at once?
“Quick work, Pskor,” Eliam said, holding up a hand. “But it was a false alarm. Grab a wyrmcatcher each, you four. Durar, take your team and help with the carrying. We’ve got two clutches of eggs to haul. Visor’s down and eyes up!”
The men snapped their visors to, and began their maneuvers to the piping whistles. They moved down to Ouistrela’s ledge and fanned out, wyrmcatchers ready.
“Now remember your promise, Ouistrela,” Eliam said from behind his mask.
“I remember my promise. I remember my promise to Nereeza.” She leaned forward, and her chain slid off the back of her collar. It rattled as it swung. With a quick turn of her head, Ouistrela tossed off her muzzle, as a warrior might cast away his scabbard after unsheathing his sword in a duel to the death. She had been holding the dwarsaw-severed muzzle to her face with her ears. “I never thought I’d get a chance to fulfill it so soon.”
Eliam’s helmet let forth a piercing shriek as he backed away. AuRon released his grip on the cavern ceiling and twisted like a cat as he fell, still watching events.
Many times AuRon had seen some small bird rise out of her nest to drive away a larger and more dangerous raptor, making up in fury what she lacked in size. This time that tiny bird’s desperate courage flamed in a body many tons of armored muscle greater. Each of Ouistrela’s legs had the power of a tiger, her tail a battering ram, her jaws a saber-toothed avalanche. She leapt into the massed Dragonguard. The first wyrmcatcher she struck with a hind leg exploded into pieces of armor flying in all directions.
“At them!” Natasatch called, cutting off her own muzzle with the dwarsaw AuRon had left in her sii.
Gouts of flame blasted the men and women of the egg-party. Epinonia created a wall of flame behind Ouistrela’s bloody chaos, Alhala in front of them, despite her belly full of eggs. Most died instantly. The Dragonguard’s scale protected them from the worst of the fire, but they suffocated in the oxygen-devouring heat. Those outside the flame fell under dragonelles leaping from their perches. The still-muzzled ones encouraged the others with fierce roars: “Behind you Ouisa, with a spear!” “One’s crawled under your ledge, Epinonia, beware!”
A figure ran toward AuRon, silhouetted by the dragonfire behind. It bore a sword in one hand and an envenomed dagger in the other. Eliam Dragonblade ran from his men’s fight. As he passed one of the still-collared dragons, the barely mature dragonelle now on Nereeza’s perch, he swung his sword at her throat. She avoided the blow, but the Dragonblade caught her in the tail with the dagger, ignoring the enraged screams of the other dragonelles. He also ignored AuRon, who advanced down the tunnel, a red mask tinting his vision.
AuRon was too late.
The maiden sniffed at her wound, eyes widening in confusion from the blade’s pain, then began to spasm in agony. Eliam watched for a few seconds, then beheaded her.
“That’s all you’re good for,” AuRon said, planting his feet to block the narrow path to the exit. “You’re an executioner, not a warrior. I doubt the Drakossozh was your father after all. I think a blighter got in there ahead of him.”
Eliam Dragonblade tossed away the broken-bladed dagger and drew another from his vambrace. “I’ve heard cornered dragons taunt me before, gray. I’ve still enough venom for you.” He avoided a futile tailswipe by a nearby chained dragonelle and approached AuRon with the dragon-killing sword Dunherr in one hand, the dagger in the other. He feinted with each, and AuRon backed up, wary. “I think I’ll put your whole head upon my wall. I’ll leave your eye sockets hollow, a reminder of your blindness to your own impotence. This little ambush won’t change anything. We’ll start again when you’re all dead.”
AuRon wondered what Father would do, one-to-one with a deadly warrior. Behind the Dragonblade, AuRon saw Natasatch freeing other dragonelles with the dwarsaw.
Eliam flipped the dagger in his gauntlet, ready to throw it into AuRon’s unarmored bulk.
AuRon did what Father would have done. He took a deep breath, tensed himself, and . . .
Roared. It was a roar as AuRon had never sounded before, perhaps never could again. Even NooMoahk in his prime might not have been able make such a sound as AuRon could with his whip-quick neck and body. AuRon poured every grain of his strength into the bellow, sending it up his long neck and out his gaping mouth in an explosion of sound that shook the walls of the dragonelles’ cavern. It froze the other dragons in their places; even Ouistrela stopped grinding the burnt and bloody remains of the Dragonguard beneath her claws. It made the nerve endings in the beheaded dragonelle fire; her body jerked on its perch.
The Dragonblade stood at the epicenter. But not for long. His weapons fell to the floor as he clasped his hands to his helmeted ears. He dropped to his knees, and AuRon saw blood run out of his helmet. The body toppled over, muscles twitching as it died.